Swedish Cabbage Rolls (kaldolmar)

Total Time: 1 hr 30 mins Preparation Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

• Servings: 4
• 1 medium cabbage or 1 medium preferably savoy cabbage, as fresh as possible
• 6 ounces ground beef
• 6 ounces ground lamb
• nutmeg (optional)
• 1/2 cup milk (for the meat)
• 2 eggs
• 1 onion
• 1/4 cup round-grain rice (e.g avorio)
• 1/2 cup milk (for the rice)
• salt
• pepper
• 2 tablespoons sugar or 2 tablespoons light syrup
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups beef stock (or sauce)

Recipe

• 1 remove the stem from the cabbage and poach the head in boiling salted water for a few minutes.
• 2 separate the outer leaves and remove any coarse stalks.
• 3 let cool.
• 4 rinse the rice and boil soft in the milk for about 20 minutes.
• 5 let cool.
• 6 finely chop the onion and sautée in the butter until transparent.
• 7 let cool.
• 8 mix meat, eggs, onion, milk, spices and rice.
• 9 put about two ounces of the mixture on each cabbage leaf and roll to small dolmas (rolls).
• 10 place them on a greased tray.
• 11 put the sugar or syrup on top together with a little melted butter.
• 12 bake in the oven at 175 degrees c/ 350 f for about 30 minutes; add the gravy or sauce, raise the heat a little and bake for another 20-30 minutes.
• 13 serve the rolls with boiled or mashed potatoes (maybe enriched with cream and butter) and farmors gurka ("grandma'scucumber"): thinly sliced cucumber marinated in strong vinegar, sugar, salt and parsley.
• 14 (personally, i'm not very fond of the sugar/syrup in the recipe, so i use to exclude it, but that's only because i'm against sweet ingredients in main courses in general).